In praise of... Denis Healey

Very occasionally, there is only one answer in politics: the really stonking lie. Labour in government in the 1960s and 70s was brutally exposed to two such moments. One related to sterling's fragile health, the other to the willingness of politicians of the left to use - rather than merely stockpile - nuclear weapons. Part of the success of Denis Healey, both as defence secretary and chancellor, lay in his extraordinary ability to convey an impression that was frequently in direct contradiction of the truth. In the corridors of the Treasury the fate of the pound might be discussed in the worried tones of surgeons gathered round the operating table. But on the public platform the chancellor would round on its detractors with bruising confidence. As defence secretary he was the politician who - if the prime minister had been obliterated in a nuclear strike - would be standing by in the bunker to give the command for the nuclear counterattack. It was vital both to Britain's foreign policy and Labour's electoral future that Moscow and the Daily Mail believed he would give the order. But under the beguiling interrogation of Professor Peter Hennessy on BBC Radio 4 last night, Lord Healey finally confessed. The old Anzio beachmaster, who had seen at first hand the bloody results of tactical miscalculation, revealed that he would never have given a command that would have left 20 million Russians dead. But, he said: "You had to make people think you would use [the bomb] even when you wouldn't."